Startup Akademija: Learning to Build on Your Own Startup

How we built it

The starting point was a pattern we had seen many times: first-time founders who know the theory of validation and have never validated anything. The lessons they took were about other people's companies, so nothing in them ever touched their own idea.

So the first decision was that every lesson is applied to the founder's own startup. Five areas, from the problem to the pitch, are worked through as missions on the idea the person is actually building, not on somebody else's case study.

The second was the order. The problem and the customer come before the business model, and the business model before the product. It is the same order we use with founders who come to us, because building first and asking later is the most expensive way to learn.

The third was restraint in public. The site promises no shortcut to funding, says plainly that big ideas take big work, and runs without tracking cookies or advertising pixels, keeping only what it needs to get back to someone. For people about to risk their savings, that is part of the value.

It started small on purpose: a free platform of fifteen missions and consultations on the founder's own case, to grow once real founders have used it. AI is part of the method, as a tool for drafting and for challenging assumptions. The judgment about what to teach, and in what order, came from people.

Built with

• Ruby on Rails
• Next.js
• TypeScript
• PostgreSQL

Questions people ask

Is this the same advice you give clients?

The same order: the problem and the customers before the business model, and the business model before the product.

Why so little tracking?

Because the audience is about to make a high-stakes decision and deserves a product that collects only what it needs.

Do you work with founders who only have an idea?

Yes. The first step is the same as in the program: the problem, the customer and the numbers, before any architecture.